Not With A Bang But A Whimper
by tuesdaymidnight
Summary: When Arthur dies in battle, Merlin casts a spell to ensure the once and future king will one day return. But how long will he wait before he loses hope?


**Disclaimer:** Though resemblance to the show is slight, the Merlin I imagine here is the property of the BBC and Shine.

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><p>He used to hope.<p>

Self-doubt was inevitable as the years, the decades, and the centuries crept on.

He had never been more powerful than he had been in that moment, that moment where he lost everything, the only thing. The field was rain-drenched, the blood pouring out of Arthur's side only made the saturated ground deepen slightly in shade, an affront to the sheer intensity of the moment Merlin's life would change for all time.

Mordred had been obliterated, of that he was certain. He was still in control at that point, his shock turned to rage in a heartbeat, one of Arthur's last, and then Mordred was nothing but a pile of dust. Morgana's ashes would have joined them, if Arthur's choked breath hadn't quieted to nothing, and something greater than vengeance inside him hadn't snapped.

Channeling everything he had, Merlin _tried_, but then his world went white, and he could never recall what he had done.

He knew he could not cheat death. The spirits would not allow it. A life for a life was always needed, and some lives were worth more than others. But he knew he did _something_. It took a few years before he understood that whatever he had done was at the cost of his own mortality. The very thing evil men lusted after was the very thing Merlin didn't want. To be condemned to immortality while the only thing worth living for was gone. To be condemned to legends that never got it all right, that spelled out the wrong tragedies, that never identified what it truly meant to love.

The story of the Lady of the Lake, of Freya, had amused him the most. He understood why its creators spoke of imprisonment. It seemed that way to them all, to Lancelot, to Guinevere, to Gwaine, but he did see them on occasion. He watched Guinevere grow and birth three healthy babies that shared Lancelot's dark features and absolute dearth of timidity. They grew up and grew older while Merlin never did. His friends never asked, but he heard their hushed whispers as they explained to their offspring that Merlin was magic. That was good enough explanation as any.

He watched them all start to wrinkle and droop, their gaits grow slow and wobbly. Until one by one, they left him. Not like Arthur. Never like Arthur. Not with a bang but a whimper.

Cradling himself in her magic underwater, he hibernated, he slept, but mostly he waited as his hope grew cold inside him. Freya could no longer sustain her human form for long, but he preferred it that way. She reminded him of a time when his ideas of love were juvenile, before he truly understood sacrifice, duty, and destiny.

He thought his power weakened as time marched forward, but it didn't, not really. He never took the time to learn the old religion, to him that would mean they had won, so he never truly understood his power.

He just couldn't bear to look back at what was once. His sight set instead on the future.

Eventually he grew restless. The most powerful warlock to ever grace the earth, and he was living the life of an oyster in a warm bath. The water of the lake lapped at the shore and wore down the rock, but the broken-hearted distress that lasted centuries never eroded, it simply settled deep in his bones. It became who he was, until he found himself in what he assumed was the future.

The legends were already sedimented, and he didn't correct them. Anyone who could have recalled his appearance was now myth, but the distortions never upset him. The few stories of Lancelot being torn between Guinevere and Arthur amused him the most. There was not a man more faithful than Lancelot, except maybe Arthur himself. He wondered how Arthur would have felt, to know he abandoned Merlin here all alone.

When he returned to humanity, it was a different age, the Enlightenment they called it. Merlin was dismayed. Not only did they pass magic off as superstition, they seemed confident they had the art of ruling perfected.

The arrogance of their treatises was shocking. There was no need for a King, they claimed. Revolutions sprang up. Armies amassed. Monarchs were shoved into guillotines or reduced to figureheads. The people no longer needed them. He couldn't comprehend this world. It didn't make sense to have king and kingdom separated as if they were different entities entirely. The politicians now were blinded by something else, something Merlin couldn't place, something foreign to him, something he didn't like.

He retreated into his memories. They came to him most clearly in his sleep. It was only there where the hard press of Arthur's body could envelop him again. Warm breath tickling the back of his neck. Calloused fingers trailing ever so lightly up his arm, making the hair stand up in their wake.

They'd had so little time together, mere drops in the ocean of Merlin's existence, but the memories were always vivid, and ever precious.

But he always awoke shivering and alone.

His life amounted to little, especially in a world where people wouldn't even _believe_ he was real. Not to mention, the one and only thing he needed was missing.

Wandering became his life. He didn't want to stray too far from Camelot at first. He could feel Arthur's presence was everywhere, even if no one else could, and it made the sting of solitude easier to take. But eventually the castle turned to rubble, went from land to property, and Merlin couldn't bear the changing landscape. But he slowly found that the stretch of Arthur's spirit went further than he thought.

Eventually he decided to leave the kingdom of his birth. He traveled to the continent and abroad, using enough magic to get by. It was a force of habit wherever he went to look for blood hair and piercing blue eyes and a brash demeanor that masked a quiet confidence. He found everything else instead.

It wasn't all bad. Not really. With nothing but time, he learned a great many things. Sometimes he thought fondly that Gaius would have been proud of his studies. He developed a penchant for the cinema, milkshakes, and motorcycles. He had never liked riding horses, preferring to trust his own two feet, despite the way Arthur teased his clumsiness. But the rumble of an internal combustion engine underneath him was the next best thing to magic.

He never hid his powers anymore, never flaunted them, using only enough magic to get by. People saw what they wanted to see and suspended belief when it was convenient. Of course, he was rarely noticed anyway. He was always good at blending in, observing, and keeping silent.

As the world began to descend into chaos, Merlin let a spark of hope kindle for the promise embedded in his magic. He played witness for years to men foolishly harnessing the physical bounty of the earth, asserting dominion, ignoring the magic within it. He nearly prayed to the gods of the old religion, not fathoming why they had not acted against man's arrogance.

He slowly watched, horrified, as courage, bravery, and honour disappeared, as if they vaporized from the spirits of men and were replaced with everything else that wasn't. He could see the apathy in people as they accepted the betrayal of their rulers, of their fellow men, of themselves. Merlin watched man's descent into madness, a disinterested observer, because no matter how bad things got, _he_ never came back.

Sometimes Merlin wonder how much worse things could be before the people needed their once king and their king to be.

He tried to be cruel and take pleasure in people's suffering, but he found even after the wretched loneliness of centuries he could not turn his back on them.

They had taken the world he knew and turned it on its head, but they persisted, they survived. In films they called it the triumph of the human spirit, but it was something much simpler, and Merlin knew it.

It was love. Love of family, love of friendship, even the love of things, that had replaced the love of kingdom.

There was no need for Arthur in this world.

Merlin wept the night he realized it. The myth would carry on forever, but Arthur would never be called upon.

No one needed rescuing anymore. No one... but him.

The spark of hope in Merlin's belly warmed him when he thought that maybe, maybe that was enough. He still needed his king, once and future. He would never be true to anything else. People who did not want to be saved could never be saved, but he still held onto that want. The hope, long dormant, burned in him as he shut his eyes tight, collecting his magic until he could hold it no longer. And with one hoarsely cried plea, to the dead gods and to the indifferent universe, he let it go.

The world went white as he fell into a deep sleep.

He dreamed that night as he so often did, but when he woke the next morning, the warm breath upon the back of his neck woke with him.

_Fin._


End file.
